Thursday, August 2, 2012

I have been eagerly awaiting this collection ever since I saw that first leaked picture months ago. Duochromes are my true love, and duochromes from China Glaze couldn't be anything other than amazing. Now, here we are in the first week of August and the New Bohemian collection is finally here in all its shiny, reflective, chrome-like, color-changing glory. The colors are:

China Glaze Deviantly Daring. Turquoise-teal-blue-green duochrome metallic with gold shimmer accent. This is the brightest and most richly colored polish in the collection. It's also the most opaque. The duochome in it isn't as strong on the nail as it is in the bottle, but there's still a modest amount of color shift. The chrome finish on this is stunning combined with saturated blue-green color.

China Glaze No Plain Jane. Ironically, this one looks like the plain Jane of the collection to me. It's a purple metallic with subtle duochrome, very similar to Deborah Lippmann Private Dancer / Nails Inc Cheyne Walk. However, it seems to lack the same strength of blue-purple and gold duochrome that the others have. I see a little orange shift with some gold at the edges, but it's not strong. It's also a little too sheer (at three coats here) for my taste.

China Glaze Swanky Silk. Beautiful pink, gold, and green chrome-finish duochrome. Another duplicate color; this one looks like Deborah Lippmann Sugar Daddy / Nails Inc. Stratford. I loved those two colors, I love this one. Nicest formula of the three, though the color is practically the same.

China Glaze Unpredictable. A blue-green-gold-teal chrome-finish duochrome. It's like a mixture of Deviantly Daring and Rare & Radiant. Makes me think of mermaid tails or Emerald Ash Borer beetles. Really strong duochrome on this one and very shiny.

China Glaze Want My Bawdy. Maybe it's just my eyes, but I can't see any duochrome in this one. I don't know if it's supposed to have any, but the rest of the colors in the collection do, so I assumed it would. It's shiny ad colorful at least. It's a little bit like OPI Into The Night from the Spiderman collection, just more sheer and a bit brighter/cleaner. I like the name, it makes me think of Majestic and Jessica.

The formula on these was good, but a bit on the sheer side. None of them were too runny or too thick and they all applied very smoothly, but I needed to do three coats of each for complete opacity. The only exception is Deviantly Daring which was completely opaque in two coats (but I did three anyway). I had the best results waiting for each coat to partially dry before applying the next one. The dry time on these is really fast, even without topcoat. And the brushstrokes do mostly disappear after they're completely dry.

I have slightly conflicted feelings about this collection. Without taking into consideration any of the other similar colors released this year and viewing just this collection by itself, I think it's perfect. But, having already seen several duplicate colors released recently (and with a few more potential dupes on the way), I wish there were more colors in here to make up for the clones. I suppose this is both good and bad- good if you didn't want to shell out major cash on the Chanel and Lippmanns (and to a lesser extent, the Nails Inc. ones), bad if you've already purchased those and now a cheaper option with a better formula is available.

Regardless of the dupes, I do still think this is a great collection. I love the colors, I love the shiny chrome finish, I love the formula. I think No Plain Jane should have more duochrome flash to it, but otherwise they're all very good. Fantastic, even. The shiny chrome-like finish on them is very pretty and doesn't have the streaking and chipping problems that older chromes have.

The China Glaze New Bohemian Collection is available now. Word of warning: This collection is limited edition, so you may want to go check it out sooner rather than later.

Nope, they are definitely a little frosty. Most of it goes away after the polish is completely dry (my pictures are taken while the polish is still wet). Really more metallic-frosty than ew-streaky-gross frosty to my eye.

I've been following you since 2009, and you are the reason for many of my purchases- put frankly, if nail polish was crack, you've been my dealer :) But these, I don't know Scrangie! I don't see all that duo chrome in them- I'm so conflicted!! You're trying to do Jedi mind tricks with your lovely nails- lol

I've been following you since 2009, and you have sparked numerous buys for me. Basicially, if nail polish was crack, you've been my most consistent dealer :) But I don't know Scrangie! I just don't see the duo chrome goodness in these- pretty frosts, but I'm conflicted! Your nails are just doing Jedi mind tricks to cause me to possible splurge anyway, lol.

Scrangie- I've been following you religiously since 2009, and I have purchased tons of polish from your swatches- basically if nail polish was crack, you've been my most regular dealer :) But I don't know about these! I don't see duo chromey goodness in anybody's swatches really, just pretty frosts- I'm so conflicted! Plus your nails are doing Jedi mind tricks, tempting me to purchase....lol

Despite the fact that the duochrome effect isn't as noticeable as we all hoped, I still think these are very pretty shades. I picked up Deviantly Daring and Unpredictable and I'm very happy with them. I don't mind a few brushstrokes with colors this gorgeous. They are much prettier in person than from what I've seen in swatches (except for yours, of course). :)

Your swatches always make me want to buy more than I think I should, lol! Unpredictable and Swanky Silk are the only colors that are appealing to me... I'd been eyeing Lippmanns and now I'm glad I don't have to shell out that kind of cash!

Love the green, beetle-shell look of Unpredictable and Deviantly Daring's turquoise glow. Definitely some good dupes for people on the hunt, but without more duo shift to these, the collection isn't grabbing me like I'd hoped it would.

I saw these today and the display was almost empty! All I got to see in person were Want my Bawdy (which I really wanted when I saw promo pics) and Rare and Radiant. Neither did much for me in person, so I waited to see swatches. I've decided that I want Unpredictable after seeing your lovely swatches, and will probably get Want my Bawdy as well. Hopefully I can find them before they all disappear!

I'm sure you'll have a lot of comments about these because so many of us have been waiting to see what they look like. I know there are quite a few dupes for a couple of colours which you've mentioned, but for European girls, it's like China Glaze pretty much copied most of the Golden Rose Classics Metallic collex.

I've done bottle shots and quite a few swatches of the GR bottles and they're definitely dupes. I guess that it's good for North American girls because they'll get a chance to have these colours now, but it's too bad for those of us who thought there'd be something unique here.

I didn't order swanky silk and want my bawdy.. Swanky silk because it looked "boring" and bawdy because of the lack of duochrome color. Now I'm thinking of getting swanky silk anyhow, It seems not that bad. Great pictures and great review.

I am so disappointed with the strength of these duochromes. I only can see it very strongly in rare and radient and unpredictable and unfortunately, I have dupes for these two already. Bawdy is a nice color but its lack of duochromeness is sad. At least the formula are good.

I did not know it was limited edition...so glad I got the ones I wanted a long time ago! Swanky Silk was my favorite, but I can never pull off that kind of color with my paleness...I still can't help but wear it!

just picked these up. i agree with your overall sort of confusion about finite feelings on this collections since we've seen so many dupes...but to me, i'm still head over heels for the collection name. it's really on target with what is happening at the cutting edge of art and culture. every ten years or so, the notion of what it means to be "bohemian" gets reinvented and this time its on some digital, i sit at my computer and make gifs that look like real life shiney things shit. so, if not for anything else, this collection is definitely evident that china glaze has their finger on the pulse more than any other nail polish brand!!!!!!!!! and this is enough of my nerd rant/commentary. cheers 2 u scrang!!!!!

There are just 6 colours right? The picture of the display really throws me off because there's 12 bottles on it.

I'm pretty much definitely getting Want My Bawdy, Unpredictable and Deviantly Daring, because I don't yet have any polishes like that in my (ever growing) collection (I bit my nails for 20+ years and have only stopped in the last year or so). I love Rare and Radiant, but I've only just purchased the Jessica version and as they look identical I don't see the point (is there any difference in them?). This site is dangerous to my bank balance